Event Type: Monday Afternoon Science Talks

Description coming soon!

Scott Lucchini, Harvard CfA Rebecca Surman, University of Notre Dame

Description coming soon!

Alexa Gordon (Northwestern University) Revealing the Progenitor(s) of Fast Radio Bursts through their Environments Abstract: Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are a new class of highly energetic, extragalactic transients. Despite thousands of FRBs detected to date, many fundamental questions remain, including their progenitor(s) and emission mechanism(s). The ability to localize FRBs to sub-arcsecond precision–pinpointing them to

Peter Scherbak (Caltech) Title: Rapid Binary Mass Transfer: Circumbinary Outflows and Angular Momentum Losses across Mass Transfer Rates Abstract: High rates of stable mass transfer (MT) occur in some binary star systems, producing luminous transients and driving circumbinary outflows. We perform hydrodynamical simulations of a donor star transferring mass to a point-mass accretor across a range of

Philippe Yao: Theoretical Models for Repeating Nuclear Transients: Stellar Orbits, Disk Encounters & Mass Transfer Barry Ginat: The Small-Scale Limit of the Cold-Dark-Matter Power-Spectrum

Ajay Gill (MIT AeroAstro) Title: A study of galaxy clusters and filaments with the Sunyaev–Zeldovich effect using multifrequency cosmic microwave background observations Abstract: Galaxy clusters are the largest gravitationally bound objects in the universe. Their study probes the evolution of large-scale structure in the universe. I will discuss a new methodology to study the thermal

Karthik Yadavalli (Harvard/CfA) Title: Radiative Transfer Modeling Supernovae to Understand Progenitor Physics Abstract: The specifics of the final-stage evolution and death of a massive star are not perfectly known. In particular, how the population of stars that lead to type Ib and Ic SNe (SNe Ib/c) experience core-collapse and ultimately explode as supernovae is so

Junehyong Jeon: Formation and Evolution of Supermassive Black Holes in the Early Universe Vedant Chandra: Tales from the Milky Way’s Distant Horizon

Chun Huang (Washington University in St. Louis) Linking Multiwavelength Pulsar Emission to Super-Dense Physics inside neutron star The utilization of Pulse Profile modeling techniques could simultaneously provide measurements for Neutron star Mass Radius and offer insights into their hotspot distribution. Presently, these methodologies rely on meta models of the equation of state (EOS) and employ

Talk 1: Yilun Ma, 3:00pm – 3:30pm Searching for little red dots across redshifts Little red dots (LRD) are a population of red, compact, broad-line objects discovered by JWST at 5<z<8. They show a characteristic V-shaped SED, where a blue UV continuum is followed by a steep red rise in optical, and they are otherwise not

Talk: Sunil Simha, 3:00pm – 3:30pm Cosmic accountancy: Baryon budgeting using FRB dispersion measures Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) are being detected and precisely localized (~<1’’) at an accelerating pace due to the efforts of several FRB experiments worldwide. Chief among these is the CHIME telescope and its outriggers, which are well on their way to localizing

Talk: Dave Clements, 3:00pm – 3:30pm The deepest Herschel-SPIRE Field We present the first results from the deepest far-IR observations ever made. These come from the Herschel-SPIRE dark field, a region observed multiple times over the entire course of the Herschel mission for calibration and instrument health purposes. Our final images combine 141 separate observations

Talk 1: Salyang Zhang, 3:00pm – 3:30pm The imprint of primordial black holes over cosmic history My presentation will discuss the role of Primordial Black Holes (PBHs) as one of DM components throughout cosmic history. I will specifically focus on PBH candidates in the solar mass range of approximately 10-100 $M_{\odot}$ and massive PBHs of $10^6

Talk: Christopher Lindsay, 3:00pm – 3:30pm Stellar astrophysics and galactic archaeology with asteroseismology The analysis of stellar oscillations, known as asteroseismology, has enabled detailed studies of the interior structures of stars, particularly subgiants and red giants. Since many areas of astrophysics rely on stellar modeling, asteroseismology provides a vital tool for improving our understanding of how

Talk : Marie Lau, 3:00pm – 3:30pm Probing Quasar/galaxy evolution, feeding, and feedback: Extremely Red Quasars (ERQs) and the Quasar-Associated Inflows Legacy Survey (QUAILS) My research focuses on understanding the evolution, feeding, and feedback processes in quasar-host galaxies, particularly through extremely red quasars (ERQs) and quasar-associated absorption lines. First, I study ERQs at cosmic-noon redshifts. Using

Talk : Jesse Han, 3:00pm – 3:30pm Hypervelocity Stars Trace a Supermassive Black Hole in the Large Magellanic Cloud Hypervelocity stars (HVSs) are produced by the Hills mechanism when a stellar binary is disrupted by a supermassive black hole (SMBH). The HVS Survey detected 21 unbound B-type main-sequence stars in the Milky Way’s outer halo that

Talk 1: Tiger Hsiao, 3:00pm – 3:30pm First star clusters observed in the early universe with JWST and gravitational lensing Understanding when, how, and why the first generation of stars and galaxies formed is crucial for revealing the early chapters of cosmic history. To reveal the first chapter of cosmic history and understand our cosmic

Talk 1: Grant Donnelly, 3:00pm – 3:30pm Touched by fire: insights from PAHs in active galaxies The space between the stars in galaxies is sprinkled with particles of condensed matter collectively referred to as “dust”. Absorbing large amounts of starlight and consequently glowing in the infrared, dust is a critical component of interstellar radiative transfer,

Talk 1: Ben Lakeland, 3:00pm – 3:30pm Using the sun to find earth twins Radial-velocity (RV) spectroscopy is a vital tool in exoplanet science, both as an independent detection method and as follow-up characterization for transiting exoplanets. State-of-the-art RV spectrographs have the instrumental sensitivity to detect sub-meter-per-second variations necessary to detect small exoplanets. Despite this,

Talk: Charlie Mpetha, 3:00pm – 3:30pm The infall region of galaxy clusters as a complementary probe to cluster abundance Galaxy cluster abundance measurements provide a classic test of cosmology. However, they exhibit a strong degeneracy between the amplitude of density fluctuations σ8, and the matter density Ωm, as do other similar low-redshift tests such as

Talk: Minori Shikauchi, 3:00pm – 3:30pm A blind search for gamma-ray burst afterglows with CHIME Short gamma-ray bursts (sGRBs) are energetic and explosive events in the Universe.  The coincident detection of GRB 170817A and a gravitational wave (GW) from a binary neutron star (BNS) merger raises questions about the conditions in which BNS mergers cause

Talk 1: Shreya Anand, 3:00pm – 3:30pm Testing whether Collapsars Synthesize r-process elements A rare sub-class of stripped envelope massive-star explosions, dubbed broad-lined Ic supernovae (SNe Ic-BL) have been highlighted as one of the potential sites of r-process nucleosynthesis capable of enriching our solar neighborhood with heavy elements. Here we present the first systematic study

Talk 1: Tom Rose, 3:00pm – 3:30pm Observing AGN fueling via molecular absorption lines Molecular gas plays a significant role in powering AGN. Unfortunately, observing this gas on small spatial scales is difficult because it can normally only be seen en masse through emission lines. I will present observations of molecular gas in several massive

Talk 1: Haowen Zhang, 3:00pm – 3:30pm Trinity: self-consistent dark matter halo-galaxy-supermassive black hole connection from z=0-10, and predictions on high-z quasars in the JWST era We present TRINITY, a flexible empirical model that self-consistently infers the statistical connection between dark matter haloes, galaxies, and supermassive black holes (SMBHs). TRINITY is constrained by galaxy observables

Talk 1: Lalitha Sairam, 3:00pm – 3:30pm When stars misbehave: the impact of stellar activity on exoplanet research and the need for a public forecast The study of exoplanets has unveiled a diverse array of worlds beyond our solar system. However, the detection and characterization of exoplanets remain challenging due to the magnetic activity of

Talk 1: Xiurui Zhao, 3:00pm – 3:30pm Active galactic nuclei in the NuSTAR era Active galactic nuclei (AGN), which represent the rapidly growing phase of the supermassive black holes (SMBH), radiate across the whole electromagnetic spectrum from radio to Gamma-rays. X-rays, which are seen in most AGN, are an important tool to study the physics

Talk 1: Evan Bauer, 3:00pm – 3:30pm Modeling runaway donor stars to understand supernovae in white dwarf binaries In the quest to understand the physics and astrophysics of how Type Ia supernovae occur, we have recently turned attention toward better understanding the physics of mass transfer and detonation in double white dwarf binary systems. These

Talk: Jean Somalwar, 3:00pm – 3:30pm Tidal disruption events in the VLA Sky Survey The ubiquity of supermassive black holes in galactic centers leads to a cornucopia of dramatic phenomena. One of the most spectacular of these occurs when a star ventures near the SMBH and is shredded in a tidal disruption event (TDE). TDEs produce bright,

Talk 1: Cheng-Lin Liao, 3:00pm – 3:30pm Extending to the brightest end: physical properties of the 870um brightest dusty star-forming galaxies at z~3 Dusty star-forming galaxies (DSFGs), luminous in the infrared, are dust-rich galaxies with intense star formation (SFR~10-1000 Msun/yr) predominantly at cosmic noon (z~1-3). They are crucial for understanding galaxy formation and evolution, as

Talk 1: Will Roper, 3:00pm – 3:30pm Massive compact galaxies in the Epoch of Reionization – this can’t be right…a tale of confusion, surprise, and compact galaxies Massive galaxies in the early universe are thought to be highly compact, an assertion which the first Webb observations have only strengthened. Indeed, in the First Light And

Talk 1: Molly Wolfson, 3:00pm – 3:30pm Constraining reionization with the Lyman-a forest flux auto-correlation function Reionization is a major phase change in our universe’s history and understanding this transition remains a major open problem. One measurable signature of reionization is the mean free path of ionizing photons (λmfp) which rapidly evolves at the end

Talk: Manas Vishal, 3:00pm – 3:30pm A discontinuous Galerkin method for the distributionally-sourced s=0 Teukolsky equation With the detection of first gravitational waves in 2015 by the laser interferometers at Laser Interferometer Gravitational wave Observatories (LIGO) located in Hanford and Livingston that was followed by a Nobel prize, there is an urgent need of more

Talk 1: Jack Neustadt, 3:00pm – 3:30pm Looking beyond the lamppost: a new method of understanding AGN continuum variability The variability of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGNs) has been studied for decades, with the UV/optical continuum observed to stochastically fluctuate at the 10% level over timescales of weeks to months. Fundamentally, this variability should be driven

Talk 1: Adriana Dropulic, 3:00pm – 3:30pm StreamGen: morphologies and orbits of semi-analytic satellite galaxies Stellar streams are excellent probes of dark matter halos and their structure. Interestingly, the Milky Way’s stellar streams are significantly more clustered in the inner regions of the Galaxy compared to those in simulations. These simulations are expensive and can

Talk: Zhihui Li, 3:00pm – 3:30pm Unveiling the multiphase, clumpy structure of the Circumgalactic Medium of High-z galaxies In this talk, I will present our recent progress on constraining the physical properties of the ”cool” (T ~ 104K) phase of the circumgalactic medium (CGM) via modeling Lya emission and low-ionization-state (LIS) metal absorption lines. We developed

Talk 1: Jesse Han, 3:00pm – 3:30pm A galactic mystery ‘unwarped’ The outer disk of the Milky Way Galaxy is warped and flared. Several mechanisms have been proposed to explain these phenomena, but none have quantitatively reproduced both features. Recent work has demonstrated that the Galactic stellar halo is tilted with respect to the disk

Talk 1: David Robinson, 3:00pm –  3:30pm Cooling and heating functions with Machine Learning In the era of JWST, observations are yielding more detailed information about the distribution and structure of star-formation regions in distant galaxies than ever before. To interpret these observations, galaxy simulations need to use increasingly sophisticated sub-grid models of star formation

Talk: Letizia Buglani, 3:00pm –  3:30pm Star-formation quenching in massive galaxies at Cosmic Noon: new perspectives from JWST The study of massive, quiescent galaxies at high redshift is crucial for understanding many physical processes driving galaxy evolution. Recent observations by JWST of such galaxies already in place at z ∼ 4 has opened up questions

Talk 1: Sean Terry, 2:30pm – 3:00pm A precursor survey of the Roman Galactic Bulge Time Domain fields I will present a recently approved program to conduct a large coordinated-parallel Hubble Space Telescope (HST) imaging survey of the upcoming Roman Galactic Bulge Time Domain Survey (RGBTDS) fields. Precursor imaging of this area with HST several years

Talk 1: Yilja Li, 3:00pm –  3:30pm A new photoionization emulator to flexibly model the ionizing sources and nebular conditions What reionized the universe? What are the masses, star formation rates, and formation histories of galaxies in the z>5 universe? Answering these questions requires a detailed understanding of the nebular emission properties in galaxies. However,